But if it sounds as if the country-pop star has overrun the area like the sea monster from Jaws, locals say the opposite is true: Swift is no killer shark.

Or bear.

"The bear and the shark—now that is what everybody talks about in line at the supermarket," says Marietta Nilson, a longtime Cap Cod resident and real-estate agent.

The bear would be the 180-pound black bear that was spotted trolling the famed Massachusetts coastal region. The shark would be the menacing great white (or great whites, plural?) that has prompted beach closures and left a swimmer with 47 stitches.

When asked which creature—the bear, the shark or the singer—has been the summer's top local news star, Cape Cod Times reporter Robert Gold says Swift has to settle for the bronze.

"The bear is No. 1," Gold says. "[It] was such a strange occurrence."

It's also the occurrence that's been moving merchandise, well, T-shirts. Swift, meanwhile, hasn't even really brought in the paparazzi. (Not that that's been a complaint.) According to Gold, local freelancers have had no trouble supplying the outside world with all the star-dates-a-Kennedy photos it needs.

"We have played it pretty low key the few times she has come in," Otto says. "I don't believe we have [had] guests coming in because Taylor Swift was spotted here."

But in all fairness, if Swift isn't a shark or a bear, then she isn't a Cape Cod slouch, either.

"She has had an impact on the visitors coming to the area," reports Jessica Sylver, president and CEO of the Hyannis Area Chamber of Commerce. "We have had many visitor[s] asking about the singer and her new home here."

Unfortunately for looky-loos, reports of Swift's real-estate purchase, of a house near the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, proved false. Fortunately, the area's perennial draw remains.

"People are going to come here for the same reason they always do," Gold says. "The beaches."